1. Field
The following description relates to an information storage medium, and a recording/reproducing method and recording/reproducing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, information storage media supporting defect management include a spare area for replacement purposes in case a defect occurs in a user area. A defective block occurring in the user area is replaced with a usable spare block of the spare area, and information about the replacement is managed by using defect information. Also, defect information about a defect occurring in the spare area as well as in the user area is also managed by using the defect information. The defect information and information necessary for disk management are stored and managed in a defect management area. At least one defect management area is formed on an inner area or an outer area of a disk-type medium. The defect information and the information necessary for disk management are called defect management information, and the defect management information is stored in the defect management area. The defect management area is also called a disk management area.
FIGS. 1A and 1B are reference views for explaining a spare area of a conventional disk 100 that performs defect management.
FIG. 1A is a layout of the conventional disk 100 that is a single-layer disk.
Referring to FIG. 1A, the conventional disk 100 includes a lead-in area 110, a spare area 120, a user data area 130, and a lead-out area 140.
The lead-in area 110 and the lead-out area 140 include disk-related information and information about a defect occurring in the user data area 130.
User data is recorded in the user data area 130, and the spare area 120 includes spare blocks. If a defect occurs in the user data recorded in the user data area 130, each of the spare blocks substitutes for a defective block where the defect occurs.
In general, once one usage order is determined, the spare blocks of the spare area 120 are sequentially used in the usage order. FIG. 1A illustrates a state where when the spare area 120 is used in a usage order from an inner area of the conventional disk 100 where the lead-in area 110 exists to an outer area of the conventional disk 100 where the lead-out area 140 exists, spare blocks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 have already been substituted as replacement blocks for defective blocks of the user data area 130. In FIG. 1A, the spare blocks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 are shown as replacement spare blocks and other spare blocks 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 are shown as usable spare blocks.
However, the replacement blocks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 that have already substituted for the defective blocks in the spare area 120 may be changed to usable spare blocks for several reasons.
That is, although the spare blocks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 of the spare area 120 have already been substituted as replacement blocks for the defective blocks of the user data area 130 as shown in FIG. 1A, the spare blocks 3, 4, and 5 may be changed to usable spare blocks for several reasons as shown in FIG. 1B.
Such reasons may vary according to the policy of a driver that provides defect management. For example, the conventional disk 100 may be certified while the driver uses the conventional disk 100. At the time of certification of the conventional disk 100, if it is determined that replacement entries for the replacement blocks 3, 4, and 5 are no longer necessary for a certain reason, the driver removes the replacement entries for the replacement blocks 3, 4, and 5 from a defect list. Once the replacement entries for the replacement blocks 3, 4, and 5 are removed, information indicating that the replacement blocks 3, 4, and 5 are replacement blocks is removed, enabling the replacement blocks 3, 4, and 5 to be used as usable spare blocks.
Accordingly, even though the spare blocks of the spare area 120 are sequentially used, replaced spare blocks and usable spare blocks may be arranged at random as shown in FIG. 1B. Conventional disks 100 do not provide management of information about the spare area 120, for example, information about which usable spare block is to be used from among usable spare blocks of the spare area 120 as shown in FIG. 1B so as to allow the driver to effectively manage the spare area 120.